10 Video Game Characters You Didn't Realise Suffered Tragic Fates

Metal Gear Solid 4 delivers a bittersweet farewell to franchise icon Solid Snake, who surprisingly survives the events of the main game, albeit with his days very clearly numbered.

With the FOXDIE virus causing Snake to age rapidly, it's implied that he has only a short while left to live in peace.

Hideo Kojima frames this as a happy-ish outcome for a man whose life has been defined by little more than killing, but it's tough not to see it as both depressing and tragic.

Snake's final months likely saw him being fast-forwarded through all the typical agonies of old age, not to ignore any potential complications caused by crawling through Outer Haven's microwave corridor near the end of the game.

As much as we all want to picture Snake heading back to Alaska and spending his final days sledding with his huskies before peacefully passing away under the watch of Otacon and Sunny, his end was more likely defined by unrelenting pain and an increasing inability to do much of anything physical.

Also, don't forget the possibility that someone, somewhere might want to harvest Snake's precious DNA for nefarious purposes and therefore try to gain custody of his corpse, not unlike all the fighting over what was apparently Big Boss' body throughout the game.

Hopefully Otacon opted for cremation, then.